It had to happen sooner or later, and the Colorado Avalanche Would have preferred much later, but they lost, 3-1 to the Blues in St Louis Monday night.
It was the first regulation loss of the season for the Avs.
“You have a good thing going and you never want it to end, but it was bound to happen sometime,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Now we need to get our guys some rest, hopefully get healthy and then regroup and get ready to go against a tough Vegas team [Friday].”
Vladimir Tarasenko had a goal and assisted the other two goals for the Blues.
“We have some games where we lost two-goal leads,” Tarasenko said. “We talk about it inside the locker room. I think that game, we stay on the plan for 60 minutes and it was a pretty good effort by everyone today.”
Jordan Binnington made 17 saves in the win.
“I thought it was a real solid game throughout,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We were on the right side of things the whole game. We checked well. Just worked, and we were stingy tonight, good defensively.
“Our game without the puck tonight was our best game for me.”
Nathan MacKinnon had the lone strike for the Avs in the loss.
Brayden Schenn and David Perron also scored for St Louis who stopped a four-game losing skid.
“That was probably our best game of the year throughout the entire game,” Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said. “I thought we played really well. I thought everybody skated well, good energy. That’s what we were looking for.”
[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Blues highlights]
Philipp Grubauer made 22 saves in the loss.
“For us, it was more about us than about them,” Landeskog said. “To be honest, it wouldn’t have mattered if they had their ‘A’ game or their ‘C’ game tonight. We just weren’t good enough and on a night like tonight, we’re not going to beat too many teams.”
Mikko Rantanen left the game for the Avs in the middle frame with a lower body injury.
“I’m sure Mikko’s fine,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said of Rantanen, who has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in nine games. “For us, with or without Mikko, there’s still a plenty good enough hockey team in here to win a hockey game.
“We’re not going to make it about Mikko or about one guy. This is a team. We’ve lost guys in the past and found ways to win hockey games.”
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